Plans to offload state houses to social housing providers is “an asset sale by stealth,” the Labour Party says.

The deluded Andy is banging on about an expression of interest from an Australian company, Horizon Homes, to buy surplus state housing stock.

He is claiming the Government has given no reason why the houses should be sold offshore,

But having surplus stock and wanting to find a buyer seems reason enough if you are not too fussy about where the buyers live – so long as their money is good (which perhaps rules out the Greeks for now).

Alf has been keeping an eye on the harpies who have been hounding Sir Tim Hunt, the eminent scientist who has lost his job for being not too clever when he tried to make a joke.

It’s disappointing to find a Kiwi sheila among their ranks.

Yep. Siouxsie Wiles (the lass with a name that seriously stresses Alf’s spell-checker) chimed in to swell the chorus of condemnation of a bloke who is being judged and found wanting not because of any shortcomings in his scientific accomplishments but for a lapse in his social skills.

Gotta say Alf hopes the book is thrown at the Greenpeace tossers who staged the day-long protest yesterday over what they say is government inaction on climate change.

Even better, let’s throw a library of books at them because this should inflict greater hurt.

The tiresome foursome are believed to have used scaffolding at the rear of Parliament to get onto the building, then make their way to the ledge which overlooks the forecourt.

Alf didn’t pay much attention to their antics, but it seems they placed solar panels there and unfurled a benner with a photo of the Prime Minister, John Key, and the words “cut pollution, create jobs – yeah, nah”.